Web services are dynamic applications accessible over a network, such as the Internet, an intranet, and/or an extranet, using a web-browsing program. Unlike static web pages, Web services present web pages that provide dynamic content. For instance, a user may be able to enter in a stock symbol, and in response have the current price of the stock with that stock symbol returned.
Web services traditionally have been constructed using programming languages. A Web service developer hard codes the logic of a Web service so that the Web service is able to provide a desired functionality. Hard coding is accomplished with a programming language, such as the Java programming language, the hypertext markup language (HTML) or another programming language. As a result, for a user to be able to construct a Web service, he or she has to be skilled at one or more programming languages.
This requirement makes it difficult for users who are not skilled at programming languages to construct Web services. Such users may have to contract the services of a skilled developer in order to construct a desired Web service. Alternatively, such users may decide not to construct a Web service at all, even if one is desired. For these and other reasons, therefore, there is a need for the present invention.